After I graduated in May, I divided my savings into a personal investing account and a Roth IRA. With my Roth IRA, I've been pretty cautious and have only invested in a money market fund because I don't want to be too risky with my retirement savings. But for my personal account I used an online tool to figure out how to allocate my money more aggressively. I figured that even if I made a few mistakes, it would serve as a good learning experience.
I'm mostly invested in international and large cap stocks, and I made my picks by looking at what some of the top holdings were in high-rated mutual funds -- I don't have the the minimum amount to actually invest in a mutual fund. I also have some funds in a high-yield municipal bond exchange traded fund, and a bit sitting in cash. My account is down about 9%, so that's been discouraging. But instead of getting out, I'm waiting for the economy and the market to turn around, and then I'll invest the remaining cash too.
My fear is that if I leave now, I won't know the right time to get back in, and I'll have to pay extra fees to do all that. My current strategy is to ride it out, and not buy any new stocks until my account start to bounce back.
NEXT: Brian Higgins, 31
Where to invest now
